Google-Searching for "Barbie", or SEO as Socio-Economic Operation
Tom Slee on the [Barbie] Google results and how they've changed now:
... this search is basically owned by Mattel. Clicking the top link takes you to a pink page with "Think Pink" written in the middle of it, and the majority of the sites feature pink prominently.
No more defining the cultural symbols of our day for you, nine-year-old girl! Quit the self-aware political discourse and get back to dressing that doll in gender-appropriate colours (as selected for you by Mattel).
In other words, people who point to Google results as some sort of mass-mind or harbinger of popular will, often neglect (or wilfully ignore) that there's quite an industry around them. And that industry interacts with other senses of industry, bringing us back to where we were before in terms of corporate control of media.
By Seth Finkelstein | posted in google | on March 02, 2008 11:48 PM (Infothought permalink)
